Mac Pro update -- when?

Maybe this is unique to the stores in my area, but there are multiple Mac Pros on display at the two AppleStores closest to me. In fact, I remember noticing on my most recent trip there were as many MacPros out as iMacs.

yep. at least in new york I see the same thing, especially in the soho store.

Maybe this is unique to the stores in my area, but there are multiple Mac Pros on display at the two AppleStores closest to me. In fact, I remember noticing on my most recent trip there were as many MacPros out as iMacs.

Pretty much the same in London and everywhere where I've been in thats a decent sized Apple store

I did, I bought a mac pro tower 3 years ago when it was a reasonably good deal, I want to buy some new ones but I'm not going to buy the current models as they stand and to seriously suggest someone should is insulting. Since then I've also bought 2 mac book pros and a mini and built a hackintosh, but some real CPU power that blessed by the Cupertino gods would be nice right?

Oh well. If you need a faster machine that you can get support contracts on, they are available to you; it's just not the upgrade you might have hoped for. But if you're running a business with Macs, and you require Pro level features...what you need to do is fairly obvious.

Per Macbreak Weekly's assessment, I tend to agree that we'll see a Mac Pro update when Thunderbolt over fiber is available. TB over fiber is required for super high bandwidth related to 4k video, etc. that the current copper TB can't handle. IF Mac Pros are to live on as high-end production machines, it seems to me it makes sense to wait for TB over fiber before upgrading the line.

Per Macbreak Weekly's assessment, I tend to agree that we'll see a Mac Pro update when Thunderbolt over fiber is available. TB over fiber is required for super high bandwidth related to 4k video, etc. that the current copper TB can't handle. IF Mac Pros are to live on as high-end production machines, it seems to me it makes sense to wait for TB over fiber before upgrading the line.

I was under the impression that the upcoming TB via fibre will be a drop-in replacement that merely extends the maximum cable length with no increase in throughput. Is that not the case?

I was under the impression that the upcoming TB via fibre will be a drop-in replacement that merely extends the maximum cable length with no increase in throughput. Is that not the case?

I believe this is correct. Last I checked the next stepping for TB was supposed to be to 40 Gbps per channel, but that wasn't slated until something like 2014. It almost certainly will require optical, but it'll require new chipsets as well. Everything should be forward/backward compatible, but 10 Gbps chipsets aren't going to magically go to 40. For existing stuff, the active transceivers being in the cable rather then onboard should mean a seamless transition to optical, but the advantage would be, as you say, max run length.

Also:

MCF_trinity wrote:

Per Macbreak Weekly's assessment, I tend to agree that we'll see a Mac Pro update when Thunderbolt over fiber is available. TB over fiber is required for super high bandwidth related to 4k video, etc. that the current copper TB can't handle.

10 Gbps per channel is absolutely not a limit for 4k video. Even with something like ProRes 4444 the data rate should be like 1/5 of that, the storage array is far more likely to be the limiting factor.

Apple remains completely dedicated to OS X and the Mac models that sell in the millions of units. The Mac Pro sells only a tiny fraction of that and is big and heavy, expensive to manufacture, and expensive to ship and store. It has no consumer relevance and no presence in the retail stores.

I personally think it will still see one more revision, available in the next few weeks, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just kill it.

I've always seen Apple's support of the pro market as strategic. Cool artist types and developers are influencers who not only drive sales but create new products that make the entire ecosystem more valuable. That said, the Mac Pro will serve no purpose if and when things like Thunderbolt GPUs are supported.

I was under the impression that the upcoming TB via fibre will be a drop-in replacement that merely extends the maximum cable length with no increase in throughput. Is that not the case?

I believe this is correct. Last I checked the next stepping for TB was supposed to be to 40 Gbps per channel, but that wasn't slated until something like 2014. It almost certainly will require optical, but it'll require new chipsets as well. Everything should be forward/backward compatible, but 10 Gbps chipsets aren't going to magically go to 40. For existing stuff, the active transceivers being in the cable rather then onboard should mean a seamless transition to optical, but the advantage would be, as you say, max run length.

Yeah faster TB would be major new revision a la USB 2/3 and FW800, I wouldn't expect it for a while. Optical cables (by Sumitomo at least) should be coming soon though.

Quote:

MCF_trinity wrote:

Per Macbreak Weekly's assessment, I tend to agree that we'll see a Mac Pro update when Thunderbolt over fiber is available. TB over fiber is required for super high bandwidth related to 4k video, etc. that the current copper TB can't handle.

10 Gbps per channel is absolutely not a limit for 4k video. Even with something like ProRes 4444 the data rate should be like 1/5 of that, the storage array is far more likely to be the limiting factor.

...and even if TB couldn't handle it, stuff like that would be what the Mac Pro's ports are for.

Apple remains completely dedicated to OS X and the Mac models that sell in the millions of units. The Mac Pro sells only a tiny fraction of that and is big and heavy, expensive to manufacture, and expensive to ship and store. It has no consumer relevance and no presence in the retail stores.

I personally think it will still see one more revision, available in the next few weeks, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just kill it.

This is also my expectation.

Apple have stated that they see FCP X as a long term project (God knows why; perhaps to keep Randy happy?), so they have some interest in the pro video market and all that entails hardware wise. When Haswell arrives with a single socket 8 core CPU, then I speculate: end of tower, this is good enough-take it or leave it and what's all this whinging about needing a non-glossy screen option... and, Apple finally rid themselves of the bastard of the family that is the MP, with its extensible and easy to upgrade/swap component nature.

Maybe Apple will surprise me, but looking at the mentality behind the launch of FCP X (initially dropping legacy from sale), I think not.

Personally, I really hope you and Prof are wrong, and that Apple continues to develop the MP. I doubt you two are wrong, but I do hope so.

Pro video/audio/3d/programmers (less now, for sure) use and depend on MP, and frankly Apple is really starting to make inroads into industrial design software...very small inroads, but it is happening. I think psychologically the market needs a MP. It used to be Apple's showcase product for new tech that would get all the oooohs and aaaahs, but not now. Rather than Apple killing it, I'd love to see them try to transform it into something completely different and unexpected - power + easy expandability but in a new form factor.

I would be in line cheering with everyone else.

I find it hard to reconcile Tim Cook declaring that Apple are now a mobile device company (I think something like that, with his last keynote) and Apple investing in a limited high end workstation market. I think Apple should. Their roots were Desktops, they are a technology Company and have customers who still require high end machines and more importantly, I'm sure they still make a profit on these machines.

I find it hard to reconcile Tim Cook declaring that Apple are now a mobile device company (I think something like that, with his last keynote) and Apple investing in a limited high end workstation market.

If Apple doesn't want to do it, and indeed they do cancel the towers, then I don't understand why they wouldn't instead pick a single partner and license OS X to them ONLY for high end towers and rackmount systems. EG let say they picked HP and HP ships rackmountable Z800 workstations with OS X and offers all the standard 4 hour onsite support contracts etc. The cost to Apple is essentially zero, just appointing a few staff members to be the liasion with their partner. Make it HP's problem to update OS X drivers for new models.

Please don't bother "they tried clones and it almost killed them", tired response, this is a very very different scenario and would be a very different outcome.

I'm not the expert, I apologize as I seem to have misunderstood where the bottleneck lives.

Well it says a 4k 16:9 display would be fine, but even then I wouldn't expect a 4k display any time soon, at least at the price range I'd expect Apple to go for (like the current 27" isn't cheap but it's still more towards the consumer side of the price range when compared to other high res displays). In any case I figure that stuff is far enough out that it wouldn't have been holding anything back any time recently or in the near future.

My guess is a 4k capable TB DISPLAY is the bottleneck, not the 4k data itself?

DisplayPort is a somewhat separate issue vs TB, even though they elected to use the same physical port. It seems most likely that VESA will need to update that first (and would want to do so anyway). Currently DP 1.2 maxes out at a 17.28 Gb/s forward link (4x 4.32 Gb/s channels), so it'll definitely need at least one or two more generations before it'd be "done". I think the value limit would be somewhere around double to quadruple that.

It'll be interesting to see though exactly how it all gets sorted out. Will they decide to consolidate after all given that DP is a primarily PC standard anyway? Will it require optical? Next few years might be the first time in a while where the link is the limiting factor, which could create a certain amount of pressure. Kind of cool too that we might have the end of conventional improvements in sight.

From my reliable source:The tower MacPro is indeed dead. It will be replaced by a headless Mac with on board graphics and one PCIe slot. Of course it will also have TB. CPU choices will be limited to 4 or 8. Not certain about RAM slots or internal HD expansion.

Take it all with a grain of salt if you like. But this guy has a history of being right. Most notably when pictures of the G4 Cube leaked he 100% authenticated them. When Jobs walked off stage I mercilessly mocked him and then Jobs pulled the "one more thing". My source literally made me chew on my hat (baseball cap) for revenge.

Things he's uncertain about, timeline, RAM slots and internal HD. He thinks it's possible (though unlikely) the MacPro may get one more update.

He's (almost) always right when he makes predictions. He knew the xServes were dead well before anyone else and he also knew about the introduction of the aluminum iMacs before any of the rumor sites. The one notable exception being the iPhone 4. He knew for a fact that Gizmodo had found an engineering shell and the final design would look different.

Feel free to dig up this post and make fun of me when I turn out to be wrong. I'd answer follow up questions but I don't know anything more and it would be pure speculation versus the mere rumor spreading that I've just done.

From my reliable source:The tower MacPro is indeed dead. It will be replaced by a headless Mac with on board graphics and one PCIe slot. Of course it will also have TB. CPU choices will be limited to 4 or 8. Not certain about RAM slots or internal HD expansion.

You are actually predicting an xMac? I hope you have good insurance.

The thing that makes me suspicious of the Mac Pro living on is that Apple is leading the world in mobile, their laptops outsell their desktops 3-1, yet they are going to keep three distinct desktop models when they only sell two laptop models?

From my reliable source:The tower MacPro is indeed dead. It will be replaced by a headless Mac with on board graphics and one PCIe slot. Of course it will also have TB. CPU choices will be limited to 4 or 8. Not certain about RAM slots or internal HD expansion.

Take it all with a grain of salt if you like. But this guy has a history of being right. Most notably when pictures of the G4 Cube leaked he 100% authenticated them. When Jobs walked off stage I mercilessly mocked him and then Jobs pulled the "one more thing". My source literally made me chew on my hat (baseball cap) for revenge.

Things he's uncertain about, timeline, RAM slots and internal HD. He thinks it's possible (though unlikely) the MacPro may get one more update.

I think that sounds like someone hedging their bets.

My thinking is that the MacPro design is starting to look dated. There's nothing "new" about it. So I would expect that Apple will have a new case for it. I'm not sure about the onboard graphics, though. I still think there would be third-party graphics-cards available. I would think it might have a slight price drop, but only in 200 / 300 dollars.

I purposefully didn't mention that word. I figured why incite the community more than necessary? I know it sounds like bullshit, but I'm honestly not predicting anything. I just couldn't resist passing on some info from a source who has a better than decent track record.

Okay, you read it here first (maybe).I'm not sure about the onboard graphics, though. I still think there would be third-party graphics-cards available.

There will 100 percent be on board graphics because all of Intel's new CPU's and/or chipsets include it, all IvyBridge CPU's have graphics built in and any chipset combo with Thunderbolt is going to have it as well. That wouldn't stop you using your one PCIe card for a decent graphics card and there's Thunderbolt for everything else.

If your source is right about only being 4/8 "threads" then that would indicate they are skipping the Xeon E5's and going straight to IvyBridge CPU's with the i7-3770K 4 cores / 8 threads 3.5 Ghz being the highest end model.

I'd be very happy if your "source" was correct but also not holding my breath.

From my reliable source:The tower MacPro is indeed dead. It will be replaced by a headless Mac with on board graphics and one PCIe slot. Of course it will also have TB. CPU choices will be limited to 4 or 8. Not certain about RAM slots or internal HD expansion.

Take it all with a grain of salt if you like. But this guy has a history of being right. Most notably when pictures of the G4 Cube leaked he 100% authenticated them. When Jobs walked off stage I mercilessly mocked him and then Jobs pulled the "one more thing". My source literally made me chew on my hat (baseball cap) for revenge.

Things he's uncertain about, timeline, RAM slots and internal HD. He thinks it's possible (though unlikely) the MacPro may get one more update.

He's (almost) always right when he makes predictions. He knew the xServes were dead well before anyone else and he also knew about the introduction of the aluminum iMacs before any of the rumor sites. The one notable exception being the iPhone 4. He knew for a fact that Gizmodo had found an engineering shell and the final design would look different.

Feel free to dig up this post and make fun of me when I turn out to be wrong. I'd answer follow up questions but I don't know anything more and it would be pure speculation versus the mere rumor spreading that I've just done.

I really hope you're wrong (unless it's an addition to the line). I know I'm in the very small minority, but my MacPro has four PCIe cards in it, plus all the bays are full (not to mention the 7 external drives hanging off it at the moment). While it may not be realistic, I really want Apple to keep a workstation class system.

I really hope you're wrong (unless it's an addition to the line). I know I'm in the very small minority, but my MacPro has four PCIe cards in it, plus all the bays are full (not to mention the 7 external drives hanging off it at the moment). While it may not be realistic, I really want Apple to keep a workstation class system.

THUNDERBOLT. None of that needs to be internal anymore except the graphics card and even thats just until OS X fixes a bug that stops it working. You will even still be able to use your cards, by buying an external PCIe thunderbolt expansion chassis.

I really hope you're wrong (unless it's an addition to the line). I know I'm in the very small minority, but my MacPro has four PCIe cards in it, plus all the bays are full (not to mention the 7 external drives hanging off it at the moment). While it may not be realistic, I really want Apple to keep a workstation class system.

THUNDERBOLT. None of that needs to be internal anymore except the graphics card and even thats just until OS X fixes a bug that stops it working. You will even still be able to use your cards, by buying an external PCIe thunderbolt expansion chassis.

I still think it would be stupid for Apple to abandon workstation class machines. Add to that getting rid of Macbook Pro 17" models according to another recent rumor, and Apple will have discontinued the two machines I use on a daily basis. If all Apple makes is consumer computers, then how long before professional applications just stop being made for OSX? From a business sense maybe Apple doesn't care, but I think they should not abandon the creative people that helped them be successful in the first place.

Is Apple hurting for profit? I think not. Would other products be more profitable than new Mac Pros? Perhaps almost certainly. Would discontinuing professional models hurt Apple's image? I guess I think so but perhaps I'm a minority.

I really hope you're wrong (unless it's an addition to the line). I know I'm in the very small minority, but my MacPro has four PCIe cards in it, plus all the bays are full (not to mention the 7 external drives hanging off it at the moment). While it may not be realistic, I really want Apple to keep a workstation class system.

THUNDERBOLT. None of that needs to be internal anymore except the graphics card and even thats just until OS X fixes a bug that stops it working. You will even still be able to use your cards, by buying an external PCIe thunderbolt expansion chassis.

I really hope you're wrong (unless it's an addition to the line). I know I'm in the very small minority, but my MacPro has four PCIe cards in it, plus all the bays are full (not to mention the 7 external drives hanging off it at the moment). While it may not be realistic, I really want Apple to keep a workstation class system.

THUNDERBOLT. None of that needs to be internal anymore except the graphics card and even thats just until OS X fixes a bug that stops it working. You will even still be able to use your cards, by buying an external PCIe thunderbolt expansion chassis.

And Thunderbolt is just as fast as internal slots? Nope.

++ current Thunderbolt is x4 PCIe 2.0, what if I need x4, x4, x1?

Actually it's x2.5, PCIe 2.0 is 500 MB/s/lane, so yeah, even worse then what you said. As we've covered like 3 times now.

Way to go eskatonic ignoring the entire discussion and just looping right back again. Using capslock on Thunderbolt sadly will not make it go faster.

Way to go eskatonic ignoring the entire discussion and just looping right back again. Using capslock on Thunderbolt sadly will not make it go faster.

I'm a pragmatist, a machine as described with one PCIe slot and thunderbolt for everything else is pretty much all I expect from Apple and I'd be happy with that. For the 1 percent of the 1 percent who really need multiple 4 full speed PCIe slots well yeah i do think you're almost certainly shit out of luck.

Way to go eskatonic ignoring the entire discussion and just looping right back again. Using capslock on Thunderbolt sadly will not make it go faster.

I'm a pragmatist, a machine as described with one PCIe slot and thunderbolt for everything else is pretty much all I expect from Apple and I'd be happy with that. For the 1 percent of the 1 percent who really need multiple 4 full speed PCIe slots well yeah i do think you're almost certainly shit out of luck.

Wow. You, an edge case, have spent days bitching about this, then a rumor that would solve your issue comes up so you throw the other edge cases to the wolves because your needs may now be satisfied?

I really hope you're wrong (unless it's an addition to the line). I know I'm in the very small minority, but my MacPro has four PCIe cards in it, plus all the bays are full (not to mention the 7 external drives hanging off it at the moment). While it may not be realistic, I really want Apple to keep a workstation class system.

THUNDERBOLT. None of that needs to be internal anymore except the graphics card and even thats just until OS X fixes a bug that stops it working. You will even still be able to use your cards, by buying an external PCIe thunderbolt expansion chassis.

Actually it's x2.5, PCIe 2.0 is 500 MB/s/lane, so yeah, even worse then what you said. As we've covered like 3 times now.

For many GPGPU applications, PCIe bandwidth is already a bottleneck. Further restrictions on that would be insane from the company that more or less invented OpenCL.

Even for pure graphics that's too low. x4 or so actually works shockingly well for many applications, small penalties even vs x16 until resolutions get to multiple screens. But below that things choke fast, and as you say that's before touching on compute applications, which are continuing to rise in ubiquity and importance. Then comes the range of everything else. If TB wasn't crippled by requiring a graphics link, then at least some of that might be alleviated through brute force (ie., just stick 6-8 TB ports on the back) and clever bridging tricks, but it wouldn't be very Apple-like at all.

eskatonic wrote:

xoa wrote:

Way to go eskatonic ignoring the entire discussion and just looping right back again. Using capslock on Thunderbolt sadly will not make it go faster.

I'm a pragmatist,

More like, well I don't even know the word, it's not pessimistic so much as it's weird. The pragmatic expectation would be "Mac Pro with faster stuff inside and don't even bother with TB". That's the dirt cheapest, easiest approach for Apple to take. Anything after that is starting to pile on expectations towards your own biases/hopes.

Quote:

For the 1 percent of the 1 percent who really need multiple 4 full speed PCIe slots well yeah i do think you're almost certainly shit out of luck.

Citation needed. The Mac Pro itself is already going to a highly rarified market. Dropping down to 1 PCIe slot and one x2.5 equiv, as you suggest, seems likely to bother much more then that "1% of 1%" number you pull straight from your ass.

I truly hope that the Mac Pro isn't dropped. This would leave me at a dead end for my work in terms of future upgrades. Shipping a neutered version of the Mac Pro that removes all but one of the PCIe lanes and internal expansion for hard drives would really suck. My options would be limited to a Hackintosh or moving to a Windows 7 workstation. I've looked into cross-grading my Adobe Master license and finding similar Windows apps and it doesn't seem to be much of a problem. We are leaving FCP behind after Apple's release of FCPX. FCP is one of the few applications we use that is OS X only.

I did put together a Hackintosh as a quick weekend project that was anything but fun. It's truly not a scenario I would want to use in a business setting. Perhaps we can put together a kickstarter project to hire some software engineers to write proper device drivers for a selection of hardware. Ha!

Thunderbolt is fantastic but there are a number of issues when it comes to the PCIe expansion cases. Considering that I already have invested a fair amount of money into PCIe expansion cards, I'm really not looking forward to having to purchase a $1000.00 (+ tax & shipping) external Thunderbolt expansion case to use them. It already adds to clutter on my desk to have yet another box tethered to my CPU containing cards that used to be inside and out of sight. The idea that functionality that used to be inside the machine now requires an external box, cables and a power supply really detracts from Apple's usual "all in one" concept.

A second issue is that Thunderbolt is currently maxed out as a 4x PCIe lane. How are the cards that I have going to work when two of them require 8x PCIe lane speeds and the third card requires 4x? Perhaps they'll work but will not offer their full functionality? That's unacceptable.

A third issue is that PCIe cards placed inside the Thunderbolt expansion chassis are not necessarily plug-n-play. Have a read on this page from Magma about their ExpressBox 3T (three-slot Thunderbolt to PCIe expansion) and what is currently supported.

Updated MacOS drivers will be required for PCIe cards to work with Thunderbolt to PCIe expansion boxes. There are two charts that provide a list of companies that have drivers ready and those who are working on it. This adds yet another layer of possible support issues that didn't exist before.

Another note is that Apple does not support external graphics cards through Thunderbolt. Regardless if it's a bug that may be fixed or not, I don't see how you can cram 16x worth of video card bandwidth through a 4x PCIe lane. Apple's options for upgrading video cards in the Mac Pro is already anemic (ATI 5770, 5780 and NVIDIA Quadro). How would nixing the Mac Pro provide for better video hardware upgrade options and drivers when it's already so poor?

Throw us a bone, Apple! Some of us that make that wonderful content for your iDevices need heavy duty hardware to pull it off!

Best,

A

P.S. The Thunderbolt PCIe chassis reminds me of the old Laser 128 2-port expansion box from many moons ago. Comedy.

From my reliable source:The tower MacPro is indeed dead. It will be replaced by a headless Mac with on board graphics and one PCIe slot. Of course it will also have TB. CPU choices will be limited to 4 or 8. Not certain about RAM slots or internal HD expansion.

If the PCIe slot is full length and can accommodate a dual slot card, add to that 2 thunderbolt port, 3-4 USB 3 ports and the usual I/O (ethernet, audio,...) and I'll buy it for 1000$.

If the PCIe slot is full length and can accommodate a dual slot card, add to that 2 thunderbolt port, 3-4 USB 3 ports and the usual I/O (ethernet, audio,...) and I'll buy it for 1000$.

You're in luck! My source just confirmed all of these specs but he's uncertain about the price. He does know that it will be under $499 for the 8 core, he just can't pin the price exactly. Expect the official announcement by the end of business day.